Bleak Day

Maybe it is a rainy day that is affecting my mood. Maybe cuz I had to ride the bus after biking for the last 2 months to work. But I'm feeling down.

I watched some of the Olympics last night. I've had my fill for a few years. As a lover of sports, I found myself pretty turned off at the modern Olympics. I saw some volleyball matches (US beating Cuba), a few floor routines from the Chinese gymnasts, and a couple of swimming races.

While I enjoyed the sports I saw (handpicked by NBC for whatever reason they want), I was utterly dismayed at a lengthy infomercial promoting China. It seemed like it was done by the China Dept Tourism rather than NBC. They probably collaborated on it.

I don't want to be another naysayer focusing on all the problems of China rather than the Olympics, but I find it hard to watch an event held in China, promoted by Exxon Mobil, when the two represent much of what is wrong with the world rather than what the Olympics are supposed to promote.

But so it goes. And China should be celebrated for bringing so many people out of poverty in such a short time. Of course, it will give many of them cancer in the coming years due to the massive pollution it creates continuously. But to see NBC salivating at the chance to collaborate with another government ("Wow, distributing Chinese propaganda is different from distributing American gov propaganda!") rather than actually fulfill the ostensible purpose of the media, which is to search for the friggin' truth and tell people about it.

But whatever.

So Russia has invaded Georgia. Well, I guess it has stopped now? I dunno. I haven't really been following it. I'm taking a break from learning such things and reading fiction for a little while. Well - literary fiction to be clear. I mean, who the hell isn't reading fiction at this point? Can anyone really believe what Bush has done? That the Vice President is not welcome at the Republican National Convention and Bush bragged about being the #1 polluter last month? Fiction cannot compare to reality. Maybe it never could.

What I want to hear is how Russia invading Georgia is different from U.S. invading Iraq. Or, owing to the fact that Georgia is actually bordering Russia whereas Iraq is literally on the other side of the planet from us, how does their Georgia invasion differ from our invasion of Panama 20 years ago?

I'm making a moral equivalence because I continue to trust our own deeply flawed gov more than the Russian Putin-stan setup. But nonetheless - how do the invasions compare?